What did you do in KSP1 today?

[User Unrelated]

I began my journey through a new perilous and exciting career mode with ASTEROIDS, LIFE SUPPORT, and DEADLY REENTRY (I haven't ever played with any of those things before)

So far I am enjoying myself, and have preened my mod list to what I think is a great compromise between having too many, and not having enough.

I have already landed a kerbal on both of Kerbin's moons, and need to go back soon for a healthy dose of science.

I also scooted probes off to Jool and Duna. The Jool trip should be fun! I packed around 3500m/s dv for scooting around the Joolian system, and built a nifty little Jool descent probe. I was quite happy with my design! (I am also pretty "low" on the tech tree. I haven't unlocked a single 500-science node yet, and still have a bunch of 300-science nodes left)

Here it is, en-route to Jool. It will only require a small adjustment along the way to bring the periapsis in low enough to jetison the impactor probe. (you can see it up there on top)

I had a little mishap (AGAIN) with forgetting that the nuclear engine covers shoot OUTWARDS... so the ship is down 2 solar panels. It shouldn't be a big deal.

And thinking about it now... I probably could have put on those 2 more goo cans for 8x symmetry and been fine... I think 6 will be enough. I don't want to sap TOO much science out of the system to transmit. I'd rather leave some there for when I send a manned crew one of these days!

Edited May 6, 2014 by User Unrelated

[Duke23]

I got bored and had one of those "I wonder what would happen if..." moments, so after some messing around on the ground I managed to weaponize some small RCS tanks using Separatrons.

It's not particularly deadly compared to some of what I was originally testing, but it's entertaining (to me at least) and could probably disable a small ship fairly easily if you can manage to hit it.

This isn't my best piloting since I was just messing around, but you get the idea.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Duke23

[Hackman]

I tried making a one kerbal SSTO. It worked, but I broke it while landing. Still, most of the plane survived. Sorry, forgot to take pictures of the crash. This is my only picture.

[Rainbowtrout]

Getting some work done on my Owl SSTO. It's a long journey, but a great one!

[Liowen]

Last night I started working on an Apollo styled lander, for what purpose I do not know yet. It as been dubbed the KSA Seagull, since it was the eagle that landed on the moon I wanted to keep with a bird theme. The outer engines are for the landing stage and the areospike is to go back and meet with the payload ship. My original thought was to maybe use this as a Laythe lander, but I am still working out the kinks in it.

[NecroBones]

I organized a lot of screenshots into mission (or theme) specific albums on Imgur. I only have them sorted by month on my own website. This was an easy drag-and-drop way to get organized for now:

https://necrobones0.imgur.com/

Example: Tylo Mission:

Javascript is disabled. View full album

[SofusRud]

Tried to get this monstrosity of an SSTO to work

Had to go through several iterations: remove excess fuel, increase number of engines, increase lift, untill I got this:

Still can't make orbit though, but at least its capable of lifting off the ground (after the end of runway drop) and stay in the air, so that's something. Maybe it was hubris that got me to try and make an SSTO with the new big rocket parts as a fuselage, but then again it does look cool.

[Bishop149]

I discovered that you can't mine Kethane from water

[pauix]

I've sent my first 2-way interplanetary mission, and even though it was only supposed to fly near Duna and get back, some miscalculations regarding how high Ike's surface was forced me to attempt a landing with the nukes:

<iframe class="imgur-album" width="100%" height="550" frameborder="0" src="http://imgur.com/a/kYLrn/embed"></iframe>

[astropapi1]

I tried making a one kerbal SSTO. It worked, but I broke it while landing. Still, most of the plane survived. Sorry, forgot to take pictures of the crash. This is my only picture.

http://i.imgur.com/xOH6rv2.jpg

Is that Cpt. Picard on the toolbar?

Why do you have Cpt. Picard on a toolbar?

[Tex_NL]

Is that Cpt. Picard on the toolbar?

Why do you have Cpt. Picard on a toolbar?

That's the icon for MechJeb's Warp helper.

[Duke23]

On the way back from a pretty risky (based on my history) mission to the Mun. I don't have powered wheels yet and even if I did, well this is way cooler. I built a rover to attach to my slightly modified "Derka" series lander and...

Ready to head out!

Somehow landed this stupid thing safely...

Checking out the scenery

Wanted to hit another biome but I landed right in the middle of this massive crater so that was going to be a challenge... Oh wait, I have a low tech rocket powered rover! Hold on to your hats!

James Kerman, boldly going where no one in their right mind has gone before.

(Returning to the lander) BRAKES HIT THE BRAKES!! This thing does not like to be landed at 50m/s

Goodbye and thanks for all the fish... Err, I mean science.

Edited May 6, 2014 by Duke23

[Liowen]

Today I took the Seagull up in the start of my Ker-Ploopo mission I want to test. Here is Ker-Ploopo after detaching and reattaching in mid orbit.

I wanted to see if it I could get them reattached before I hit my highest point, and I did successfully. Here you can see the remainder of the launch stage (Yes I like the new shiny bits, but I am having fun). This would deorbit itself limiting the space junk.

Lastly the orbiter detaching the Seagull for its return home, I have yet to do the Mun mission with this setup but I feel it should be a go.

I made a few modifications to the Seagull and the orbiter, mainly getting rid of the big round batteries in favor of the square ones for some weight saving. I also got rid of the areo spike as I forgotten that you cannot attach a decoupler under it, so in it's place are a pair of the white radial engine (I forget their name). These engines are only meant for the lift off of the surface of Mun/more place I am visiting. Another idea I have is to attach a 2 man rover to the bottom of the Seagull that will be left behind once the mission has been successfully done, although I am not sure how tall it can be due to the landing legs I am using in this configuration.

[NoPanShabuShabu]

Finished driving the Science Rover to Eve's North Pole. The last degree was the hardest. Some sights rarely seen:

The floating rock warns not to approach lest ye be destroyed!

As close as I dared to drive the rover.

The Spire:

Jeb walked as close as possible to plant a flag.

The crew reflects on the bigness.

[Jouni]

I completed the second refueling trip from Gilly to my Eve lander. With 2-3 more to go, the lander may eventually see action.

I also finally remapped the switch ship keys to something that exists in a Finnish Mac keyboard. [ and ] are Alt+8 and Alt+9 in my keyboard, which KSP interprets as Mod+8 and Mod+9, instead of [ and ]. After changing the active ship a few times, I ran into my first docking bug. When I got the docking ports close to each other, it felt like that they actively repelled each other, instead of pulling closer. A visit to the space center solved the problem, however.

[User Unrelated]

continuing along on my realism mod adventure.

I built a neat-o mun lander to go milk biomes

And I designed, built, and launched what came to be called "The Gator", a Moho orbital science thing

I've never sent anything to Moho before, but I figured I might as well try.

Here it is all packed away in a 1.25m fairing

In this pic, it only has 1 radiator, but an oversight on my part (the radiators have to heat up before they work at maximum efficiency) had me thinking I needed another, which I attached to subsequent prototypes. I think the dual radiators looks cool, so I just kept them.

An I know I know... Realism? Clipping? I really like building small things that unfold with IR, so this building style is going to stay.

I think I might have overdone the launch vehicle a bit

And to go along with the realism, I have started trying to use correct-ish gravity turns when possible

The actual Gator 1Ol sits in a 100km orbit, with 7500m/s Dv left... I don't even know what I am going to do with all that Dv!

I might try landing... if my dual hall-thrusters can provide enough thrust on Moho, which is pretty small I guess... We will see. I have 60 in-game days to decide and do research while I wait for the transfer window to open up.

Here are some shots of some preliminary propulsion system testing

Edited May 7, 2014 by User Unrelated

[loch.ness]

After finding out my Moho transfer wasn't real (apparently Alarm Clock and mech-jeb calculated the transfer wrong because of Moho's position an online transfer window calculator set it months away) I began working on my Jool mission(s) instead.

This will be my first every Jool mission so I'm no attempting the Jool - 5 challenge this time (well not officially). I'm preparing one ICARUS (Interplanetary Command And Reconasiance Utility Ship) for Laythe and another for the smaller moons (haven't decided if I'm going to try Tylo on this trip).

Today's design mission was the Laythe Adventure and Discovery Yacht, or LADY.

These images are from the prototype of LADY (jeb took her on a suborbital flight to test the parachutes and floats in the same go). I'm not crazy about having the lander can on top like that but it does make for a spiffy bridge in ICV mode. The prototype can do 19m/s over the surface nice and stable. The platform off the back allows for swimming off the boat and easy return. And the ship will have a number of KAS grappling hooks and anchors.

I won't have the big Near Future Solars by the time I launch, but I do plan to put those on future LADY's sent with a permanent colony if it makes them look like big old sail boats.

Now to get LORD working (Layth Orbit Return Devise, an SSTO plane for bringing my boat's captain back up after their done playing in the alien water).

[KerbMav]

Took what I liked for the mods I use from Kerbal Space Program Renaissance Compilation, marvelled at the blue marble that Kerbin is now.

Built a Moho Exploration Probe Ship. The MEPS consists of a surface probe and a mapping satellite.

After a failed launch simulation and a bit more fuel, the transfer stage was still needed to attain a 90x90 orbit - transfer window coming up in a couple of days. TWR is really low, transfer burn will take a while.

Hopefully the orbital insertion stage will be enough to slow down into an orbit. The surface probe also should have enough fuel, but maybe I should decouple the mapping satellite first and use what fuel is left in the carrier for the preliminary landing phase of the probe.

Also will have to plan departure for two asteroid missions.

[Bishop149]

@loch.ness

Very cool little boat!

I have not designed much floating stuff, one failed attempt a a Kethane drilling platform (can't mine aquatic Kethane deposits as it turns out) and that's about it. I have use planes to get around Laythe but it would be nice to have a method slightly less prone to catastrophic landing failures.

I am inspired and am totally designing a boat . . . what kind of speed can it safely get up to? Any critical design tips?

[loch.ness]

LADY is my first boat, she can get to ~ 18.7 m/s over water. (made it up to 19.3 but had to control tilt).

The radial air intakes are much more boyant than the fuel tanks behind them, so she has a bit of a slope to her (used a sky-crane for most of the chutes and delivery).

I went with a catamaran design, with the 2.5 meter SAS on the underbelly (like for all my rovers) she turns a treat, but she'd probably float better with the radial intakes along the bottom. The two decks was mostly to test if it worked - I wanted to keep her a bit boxy to fit onto my transfer ships. If I was building her again (and in the future) I might move the lander can bellow deck replacing that front light with the can window then use the Science Jr on top as the base of the mast. This time around I was worried about center of weight. The ramps could probably use ladders - Jeb sometimes had problems with them, but mostly managed with a jump and a head bump) and a bit of a bigger deck would make it easier to walk around.

The hardest part was actually getting her to the water (tried for over an hour with an earlier SPH design before I gave up and moved to the VAB. The sky crane (will post pics as I dock my LADY's) carries most of the chutes, but the boat herself has enough for final landing (on kerbin) otherwise the crane lands on the boat which is bad. - Oh and don't physics warp, it doesn't like that - .

Design: I gave up going for traditional boaty boats when I couldn't get the hull looking how I wanted. Used as inspiration after several long tries showed that my first attempt neither looked good nor turned:

Mostly: I found a wide Catamaran is pretty stable with an under-hanging-centerally placed) SAS for good control. I'd love to make a much bigger one with Wing segments in the future (I can Kerb-Paint Wings), but for now I'm pretty happy with Lady. The Jool mission is a while off still, so I won't know how it handles Laythe for some time to come though (still need Tylo, Bop, Pol, and Vall landers, need to finish LORD - my laythe plane - and to assemble my next command ship).

[NecroBones]

I made a tutorial about choosing your rendezvous location to dock in the sunlight (not ending up behind the planet).

Thread here: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/29533-What-did-you-do-in-KSP-today?p=1141398#post1141398

[Jas1126]

You know, I've lived long enough to play 95% of the "Scary" games ever released in America (at release) and nothing has ever unnerved me as much as watching my craft float towards Kerbin without the planet's 'skin' showing.

http://i1081.photobucket.com/albums/j350/jas1126/oops_zps7b3c3499.png' alt='oops_zps7b3c3499.png'>

Edited May 7, 2014 by Jas1126

[Frank_G]

Nice video Mr. Bones! It has a nice amount of information and graphically displays the process. I like it!

[Frank_G]

Behold Damokles KV-426! Ok, the picture is not so impressing, but its a 2983.93 ton class E in a circular 350 km kerbin orbit... That was quite a piece of work to keep it from impacting and i am proud like hell to finally have forced this big guy into the desired orbit.

After capturing it in a highly eccentric and inclined orbit, i pushed it further and further over the last weeks, launching a mission from time to time, whenever i had nothing better to do. Now it will serve as the foundation for my new science station.

[Felsmak]

I found out that some of my Kerbals had eaten more snacks than they were allowed. I could not let such an act go unpunished, so I had to teach them a lession.

I figured some non-solitary mohole confinement would do the trick, so I carried the perpetrators all the way to the north pole of the innermost planet.

It was a long way down.

A very, very long way down.

Eventually, though, they reached the bottom, so the ones that survived the fall now had plenty of time to think about what they had done.

There were many Kerbals on my list, but I believe I got them all.

I think they will respect the snack rations in the future!